Storms wreak havoc in regions of France and Italy

northAfter storms with torrential rains and floods, several people remain missing in southern France and northwestern Italy. Dozens of wanted people could be found Saturday night. Two people died in Italy. Numerous houses in the interior of the French Côte d’Azur and in the Italian region of Piedmont were uprooted by bodies of water, entire villages cut off from the outside world.

In the border area between Italy and France around the Tenda pass, initially 18 Italians and four Germans were searched, but according to Italian civil protection, they were found.

In the area around Nice in southern France alone, eight people went missing on Saturday, ten more are believed to be missing, as announced by the fire department. Among those missing were two firefighters whose vehicle was washed away by flooding during a mission. In the town of Roquebillière, about 50 kilometers north of Nice, two residents who had fled to the roof of their house due to increasing flooding also disappeared: the house collapsed, according to authorities, and the two old men disappeared in the floods. . At the site, a bridge over the Vésubie river was torn off, as was a camp, houses were destroyed or razed, according to AFP reporters.

Landslides threaten in several places

Dozens of people were rescued from the floods, according to the fire department. A representative from the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture spoke of an “unprecedented situation”, large areas were affected by the floods and several villages were cut off from the outside world. According to the network operator Enedis, thousands of homes in the region were without electricity. There were also massive disruptions to the telephone network. French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a visit to the disaster area.

There was a risk of landslides in several places, so many roads remained closed on Saturday. At the Turini pass, some ten kilometers from Bollène-la Vésubie, several fire trucks had to wait before being able to continue towards the disaster area, an AFP correspondent observed. Several of the fire trucks were loaded with boats.

The floods were triggered by heavy rains on Friday in the region around Nice. Dangerous storm surges were forecast for the coastal metropolis. The Var river overflowed. Air traffic to Nice was suspended and all train stations in the region were closed.

The situation in the neighboring regions on the Italian side was equally dramatic. In Piedmont, numerous villages where houses and streets were devastated were cut off from the outside world and without water or electricity, as announced by the region’s authorities. “The situation is dramatic,” said the province’s fire department, according to the Italian agency Ansa. 150 firefighters are on duty. Damage was also reported in Liguria. In Ventimiglia, on the French border, Mayor Gaetano Scullino said, in light of the floods, “there has been no such disaster since 1958.”

There were heavy rains and floods on Saturday night in the Italian regions of Lombardy and Veneto. In Venice, both locals and tourists marveled at the annual “Acqua Alta” flood. Moving levees stopped flooding this year. In November last year, a record flood of 1.87 meters was measured in the city of the lagoon.

The storm “Alex” did not spare Switzerland either. There were also heavy rains, floods and landslides there. Highways and train routes had to be closed. The strongest wind gusts were measured in Ticino in the south at 181 kilometers per hour.